Kinematics
by DrMeh
Summary: Argus Filch does not smile when he cleans.


**a/n**: A very, very short drabble on Argus Filch. I'm really not sure what I was thinking while writing this... just that he's an interesting character in the right light. Harry Potter is copyright to J.K. Rowling. Otherwise, please do not steal.

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_If we do not meet, we won't fight, with no chance for disillusionment. _

Take 5 - Utada Hikaru

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Argus Filch does not smile when he cleans. For years the only thing he has greeted with a smile is Mrs. Norris, and briefly that _nice _lady, Madam Umbridge (he'd tried calling her Dolores, but it seemed to offend her), but he'd learned in the Chamber of Secrets debacle that Mrs. Norris couldn't be there for him forever, and Madam Umbridge had been forced to leave by the students.

The students. By God, he hates the students, hates and hates with all his heart that shrivels further with every rule they break, with every charm they taunt him with. He hates that they flaunt their magical abilities in front of him, but he hates even more that they are not in fact actively mocking him. It would be much easier if they were.

No, they won't give him the dignity of their attention, no matter how negative. There's no room even in the back of anyone's mind for him; he's left past the periphery and nobody cares enough to hurt him, let alone be sensitive to his hurts. When he brings this up to Dumbledore (often loudly and obnoxiously as possible), the aged man gives him a tired look and reminds him that these are children he's so worked up against.

Yes, they're children, and that's what hurts the most. That _children_, who should be the most caring, the most open minded, the most perceptive, have no patience for him, so it's only fair that he has no patience for them, right? And if people have said to him that maybe if he weren't so cruel and unapproachable, he would reply that it's none of their business, because he's tried _that _before and it doesn't work, Mr. Norris will tell you.

So he chooses to hate, chooses to keep the instruments of torture in his office cleaned and ready to use, chooses to terrorize the students; it's petty, he knows, but what would Dumbledore or McGonagall know about wanting notice?

But then the war comes back, and the old man dies, and suddenly all the dark things he's ever dreamed of are coming true. He stares at the small, chubby feet swinging eye-level, can't bring himself to look up at the first year girl the Carrows had hung from the ceiling with Filch's own collection of chains, can't believe that he'd actually threatened to do the same, once upon a time, long, long ago.

He forces himself to skulk, to pretend he's enjoying the terror in the castle, lest the Carrows turn their thoughts to him. He waits until the Ravenclaw boy has rescued the child, waits until they're done torturing him, and cleans the blood left behind. _Soak the rag, squeeze off excess, scrub, flip, scrub, and repeat._ His back creaks but he keeps his head down, conscious of the Death Eaters' inattention to the Squib in the room. It makes him smile for the first time while he's cleaning, a horribleugly smile pulling at the edges of his dry mouth. The irony of it all twists his face into an unrecognizable mask of unrecognizable emotion (he suspects it's guilt) and there's hot, bubbling _something _in his throat that makes him want to equally laugh and cry.

It's a night of firsts, he discovers, as he scrubs children's blood off dungeon floors with his tears and a horrible, ugly smile.

Not soon after, that Potter brat comes and does his _hero _thing, and the Death Eaters are gone, and the children are back. Only they don't tease him anymore, not even the twin terrors (when he learns that one of the ginger haired devils died, he hobbles to the Black Lake and throws all his chains and whips away) and he's finally given the peace and rest he deserves.

He stays around as caretaker, since he doesn't really have anything else to do, but the job's become a lot less rigorous in the years after the war. The students have had enough of violence, it seems, and so the days go by quietly without so much as a dungbomb in the halls. He mops after the occasional muddy footprints of Herbology-goers and Quidditch players, dusts and polishes occasionally, and doesn't gloat in the newfound peace. He doesn't really think he deserves to, you see.


End file.
